Following strong lobbying from the Angling Trust, sea angling groups, and Parliamentary angling spokesman Martin Salter MP, Labourâ€™s Fisheries Minister Huw Irranca-Davies has made clear the Governmentâ€™s opposition to any attempt to use the EU Article 47 Directive to impose quota restrictions on catches made by recreational sea anglers.

â€œI am certainly aware of and can understand the strong concern among the sea angling community about the proposal to regulate recreational fishing activity. I was able to hear these concerns first hand at the Angling Summit which you chaired in the House in January and in the correspondence I have received on the issue from a range of sea anglers.â€

He continued:-

â€œWe will be opposing the Article 47 proposals in their current form. I do not believe that the Commission has made the case to date to support its proposals and we will continue to challenge and seek further clarification from the Commission and amendments to the proposals.â€

Martin Salter stated:-

â€œI wrote to the Fisheries Minister last month inviting him to clarify the British Governmentâ€™s position in order to allay the fears about sea angling quotas which were caused by some of the mixed messages coming out of Brussels. Iâ€™m delighted he has taken such a robust line and came down on the side of sea anglers. This is excellent news and Huw Irranca-Davies is to be congratulated for lisening and acting in the interests of anglersâ€.

Leon Roskilly, a recreational sea angling campaigner, said:-

â€œIâ€™m immensely reassured that the UK Government is backing the countryâ€™s recreational sea anglers on the issue of Article 47, including the many businesses and coastal communities that rely upon visiting sea anglers for their livelihoods. The Ministerâ€™s stated position on Article 47 reflects the effort put in by the Angling Trust, clubs and individual anglers to alert DEFRA to the damage that these proposals could do to a sector that is incredibly important to so many, and which is widely regarded as having minimal impact on fish-stocks.â€

He added:-

â€œThat the Government is prepared to listen to our concerns, at a time when anglers are reeling from mounting threats to our passion, gives every angler hope for the future. We look forward to a continued and robust defence of the rights and freedoms enjoyed by the nationâ€™s anglers, against all unnecessary bureaucratic restrictions.â€
Before you all get carried away remember he is only one of the Council of Ministers and they could vote against him we will maintain the pressure. The Angling Trust is sending a delegation to confer with the Commissioner later this month in an effort to clarify some of the confusion especially relating to charter boats and boat anglers in general.

Thankyou stuartmac for sharing this with us, it may give a little relief to some people but I am very suspicious of the whole thing and wont feel any relief until Article 47 has been withdrawn. It is nice now labour have joined the campaign but is it purely a response to the tory intervention, I just hope they are all serious and not just point scoring as they often do.

I really don't trust the Labour party at all with our fishing, after all it was them who suggested a sea angling licence last year, it was them who suggested bag limits and it was them who insulted us with that patronising piece of rubbish the RSA Strategy. Once Article 47 is done and dusted it will be them who will be back at us with marine protected areas, bait digging bans and god knows what else in the marine bill. They cant pretend to be our allies when they know full well they are going to sneak up on with far worse regulations in the not too distant future. Not to mention how many times they have in the past vetoed the EU on a proposed commercial cod quota cut.

Leon Roskilly and Martin Salter are thick as thieves. If memory serves me rightly, bloody Salter is from Luton by the sea and gets all his angling information from Leon Roskilly, I could write on a postage stamp what these 2 know about sea angling. Leon Roskilly has supposedly retired from being an angling rep, yet the devious sod is still meddling in matters he should keep his beak out of.

They keep mentioning getting RSA removed from article 47, my main fear at the moment is that somehow they declassify charter skippers as RSA and leave them in article 47. Call me paranoid but they ain't to be trusted.

While at Looe the skipper I always go with was telling me his son works on a long liner and he was saying that the boat puts out 36.000 hooks at 1 go the bait is cut auto- maticly and fed into a huge mixing drum the hooks are run through the mixture and are baited on the way down any that doesn't bait it is too bad.
What chance have we got against that

Haven't we been quiet on here about this Art what!!! Did you all think it had gone away? well they are considering it again this Friday and here are some of the bits that may come out:
Article 47- Recreational fisheries (state of play after Committee on Fisheries voting 31 March)
(new) "Recreational Fisheries" means noncommercial fishing activities exploiting living aquatic resources for recreation or sport and including, inter alia, recreational angling, sports fishing, sports tournaments and other forms of recreational fishing;
1. Recreational fisheries on a vessel in Community waters on a stock subject to a multiannual plan shall be subject to an authorisation for that vessel issued by the flag Member State.
Recreational fisheries conducted from a vessel in Community marine waters on a stock subject to a multiannual recovery plan may be evaluated by the Member State in whose waters they are conducted. Fishing with rod and reel from shore shall not be included.
2. Catches in recreational fisheries on stocks subject to a multiannual plan shall be registered by the flag Member State. Within two years of the date of entry into force of this Regulation, Member States may estimate the impact of recreational fisheries conducted in their waters and submit the information to the Commission. The relevant Member State and the Commission, on the basis of the advice of the Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries, shall decide which recreational fisheries are having a significant impact on such stocks. For those fisheries having a significant impact, the Member State, in close cooperation with the Commission, shall develop a monitoring system that is able to accurately estimate the total recreational catches from each stock. Recreational fisheries shall comply with the objectives of the Common Fisheries Policy.
3. Catches of species subject to a multiannual plan by recreational fisheries shall be counted against the relevant quotas of the flag Member State. The Member States concerned shall establish a share from such quotas to be used exclusively for the purpose of recreational fisheries. Where a recreational fishery is found to have a significant impact, catches shall be counted against the relevant quota of the flag Member State. The Member State may establish a share from such quota to be used exclusively for the purpose of that recreational fishery
There is more mud in the water because the multiannual stock i.e. cod bass salmon and eels to name some will be subject to catch returns. Its not clear if the shore anglers will be exempt from this as the Data Collection Regulations say in Community Waters and they go up to the beach but this is only in respect of the multiannual defined species. If you have a minute look at https://datacollection.jrc.ec.europa.eu/21?p_p_id=20&p_p_lifecycle=0&p_p_state=maximized&p_p_mode=view&_20_struts_action=%2Fdocument_library%2Fview&_20_tabs1=folders&_20_folderId=95004&_20_keywords=&_20_advancedSearch=false&_20_andOperator=true&cur2=3 the Data Collection Structure is already to go.

Hi Stuart, Its getting very difficult to follow this now (this is probably by design). Defra did this with the RSA strategy consultation, they stick more and more confusing info out there so that most people just dont bother replying because basically they dont understand what they are replying too. I aint thick, infact Im educated to degree level but I'm loosing the will to live with it. Could you possibly give us a summary, even Bullet points of what were faced with and when. Pitch it at the average north east angler - The Sun Newspaper style (That includes me before anyone takes offence).

Hi Stuart, Its getting very difficult to follow this now (this is probably by design). Defra did this with the RSA strategy consultation, they stick more and more confusing info out there so that most people just dont bother replying because basically they dont understand what they are replying too. I aint thick, infact Im educated to degree level but I'm loosing the will to live with it. Could you possibly give us a summary, even Bullet points of what were faced with and when. Pitch it at the average north east angler - The Sun Newspaper style (That includes me before anyone takes offence).

The bottom line is glen defra want give charterboats a licence they are hellbent on it i was speaking to john whitton last night he had a phone call of stuart relating to this we have one of a fight on our hands they seem they cant wait to destroy the charterboats around the uk.

It`s clear to see Glenn, it is EU legislation but they`re letting member states do their dirty work. In our case, the EU have put out the contract on us anglers, the British Government are the hit men and DEFRA are the snipers. I truly believe we are all in their sights, the charters first but we will all cop it in the end.

Well Glenn it's bad enough reading it without trying to summarise but here goes. The above post is the ammendments that the Parliament are discussing this Friday. The underlined text is the proposed ammendment that they will vote on. The craz thing about it is that even if they vote these ammenments through the Commission can disregard them. We move from Fridays vote to the Plenary sessions where we can still try and alter things.
Point 1 Is where they are trying to clear up the definition of recreational fisheries. To some extent the ammenment is some benefit. AT would prefer that they use the definition of Recreational Angling agreed between the EU and EEA in 2004.
Point 2 effects the charter boats and private boats. This means that catches in North East terms of cod and to a lesser extent bass will have to be recorded from all vessels (kayaks are exempt at present) they can also add other species to the multiannual plan. The ammendment is to make the meaning discretionary on the Member State i.e they MAY instead of SHALL. However DERFRA has already submitted their proposals on how they will collect data.
Point 3 This the directive to collect the data. The ammendment is trying to make it happen two years from the date of the Regs coming into force. But as stipulated above DEFRA are ready to go and would/will use Cefas.
Point 4 Means that if the survey says that we are impacting on the cod stocks DEFRA would have to issue a recreational quota, which may or may not come from the commercial allocation. I quess that this may be preceded by bag limits and we already know the miniscule allocation that has been allocated to France and Belguim. Paul would have to throw that monster back that he caught of the West peir. Can you imagine what a storm that would have caused.
There is an appeal from the EAA to re contact MEP this week before Friday just to bring them back up to speed and re kindle the drive to get Art 47 scrapped.
Bear in mind that the above is my interpretation and I can be as thick as the next guy.

Have they given any thought about who will record the catches from a boat. I.E would the angler or the skipper be responsible for recording and submitting a catch. I can think of a thousand and one ways the rules could be bent unless they intend to put a fishery officer on the charter pontoon at 5pm every afternoon and check each boat and angler as they land.

As for shore fishing quota's its a non starter. Who will take the law to the end of the south gare ? :scared: :scared: :scared:

Have they given any thought about who will record the catches from a boat. I.E would the angler or the skipper be responsible for recording and submitting a catch. I can think of a thousand and one ways the rules could be bent unless they intend to put a fishery officer on the charter pontoon at 5pm every afternoon and check each boat and angler as they land.

As for shore fishing quota's its a non starter. Who will take the law to the end of the south gare ? :scared: :scared: :scared:

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Should keep ideas like that to yourself BB telling them where to site their office as for shore fishing, south gare, probably make it an MCZ

It really isn't that difficult for them to work that one out. One charter pontoon one exit, its the same in any charter port nationwide. This is why boat anglers are such an easy target (as opposed to the north east shore angler who you'll struggle to locate at the bottom of a cliff somewhere on the Yorkshire coast on a cold dark winters night). The skippers could of course drop anglers at different access points around the harbour. But then just as they did with the commercials DEFRA can bring in a law to say where and when you can land. You might think they are daft, but they aren't. The only thing can be done now is to stop it otherwise the boat angling in Whitby and many other places is over. You would think the charter skippers would be more active on this one. I am beginning to think some of them have already accepted defeat.

It really isn't that difficult for them to work that one out. One charter pontoon one exit, its the same in any charter port nationwide. This is why boat anglers are such an easy target (as opposed to the north east shore angler who you'll struggle to locate at the bottom of a cliff somewhere on the Yorkshire coast on a cold dark winters night). The skippers could of course drop anglers at different access points around the harbour. But then just as they did with the commercials DEFRA can bring in a law to say where and when you can land. You might think they are daft, but they aren't. The only thing can be done now is to stop it otherwise the boat angling in Whitby and many other places is over. You would think the charter skippers would be more active on this one. I am beginning to think some of them have already accepted defeat.

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Surely this must have been brought up at meetings of the WCSA,where all skippers could sign a pettition,and name their boats on it as well glen ,then forwarded to the apprpriate mep or would some skippers not bother in the first place ?

Of course their not daft, they`ve been building up strategies for years on how to implement the raping of the British wallet and as soon as a loop hole is found, they legislate to fill it. Maybe the charters see this as a good thing, over the past 20 years or so the Government have found out that no matter how much they increase the price of things with taxes, the great British public just take it on the chin and carry on paying. Are the charter skippers looking at it the same way, knowing full well that a passionate boat angler will pay. I don`t know what the increase will mean as regards a days fishing but people will just grumble and pay. We are such a demoralised society people are definitely passed caring, apart from a small minority whom are, I`m sorry to say too small to do anything. Is it time to forget negotiation and take things to a French level, demonstrate our case and make these bureaucratic idiots take notice, then negotiate.

My Prediction is a small charter fleet. Less people will fish because they cant keep what they catch. Some boats will go out of business and the remaining ones will take what anglers are left. Diversification is also likely with Bass and Pollock sports fishing on the cards.

As for Article 47 and any opposition from us or anyone else, I think its a bit too late now. I had an email off Stuart this morning to say the Eu were voting on this at Lunch time today. I don't know what the outcome was or what the next step is though.